QUESTION: I have a deep feeling of being in silence, but I don’t know if it’s my mind’s tricks or my inner voice. I did one year of intensive psychotherapy after a suicide attempt; afterwards, I left to India, spending four months there. When I came back, all my friends left me, saying they didn’t recognize me anymore. I found myself more centered than before, but at the same time I had the feeling of having one foot in one dimension and the other in another dimension. For one year, I couldn’t find a job, so I just explored and started enjoying being and meditation. Now I am back in society, having a job for financial reasons. After four months of working, I find myself drained of energy; it’s not that depressive state I had before the suicide attempt, I just feel low energy, having the need to be in silence, not having to talk, and this scares me! Is it a spiritual ego attempt to escape from the outside world challenges? Am I getting crazy by feeling this need to withdraw from society and shut up? Is it because I just work for money? Between fears and mind, how should I know which is my true path? I am also having orthodontic treatment, which I know is related to the fifth chakra, but I don’t know how to interpret it…

ANSWER: Let’s start with the last, first. Orthodontic treatment manipulates the jaw, which indirectly can manipulate the pelvis and hips. This can bring up and release tremendous emotional content that needs to be dealt with. So actually it will be more lower chakra issues than upper.

True silence is silent, deep, grounded. It does not doubt or question, it just IS. It takes much doubt, questioning, and grappling to touch it initially. It can take work to foster the relationship and deepen it. With commitment, it can be a residing place - then no outside force will touch it. Only you can answer the question: is it your "mind’s trick or your inner voice"? These are two distinctly separate and distant songs. Start by examining that and why you would confuse those two. Given the work you have already done, shining your conscious mind on this question should move some energy in your quest. Only you can answer this, no one can do it for you.

Living in society in this moment in history of the Western world, and having a relationship with Self, takes tremendous work. Everything and everyone around us is geared towards disconnection. Even some, if not much, of the supposed spiritual movement, is engaged by people who have not addressed nor integrated their unconscious material. Hence unconsciously they nurture disconnection under the guise of connection. This is post-graduate work of spirituality, to work towards what feeds us and at the same time learn to be in relationship with things as they are. Withdrawing from society, while certainly noble at times, for some is usually an escape from the sand that ground us into pearls. It seems like you have released much, now invite in what serves you.